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Category Archives: Libraries

Please share this & help Save Barnet Libaries gather evidence on the impact of the libraries cuts. The Government is considering whether Barnet Council has broken the law which requires them to run “a comprehensive & efficient” library service. This follows from a formal complaint submitted to the Department for Culture Media and Sport by the Save Barnet Libraries campaign.
You can help persuade the Government to rule against Barnet Council by filling out this form on the SBL website >> And SHARE it!

The Council may not plan to close any libraries in the short or mid-term but what is being proposed will reduce their quality, accessibility and safety and to closures in the long term,

The Council are proposing to cut the staffing budget by 46%.

This means that around 30 library workers are now learning they will lose their jobs. These are men and women who have given years and sometimes decades of service to the people of Barnet.

This is poor reward to a workforce who have consistently achieved percentage scores in the high 90’s for good public satisfaction.

Such a cull of the library workers means that libraries will only be staffed for 30% of the opening times at the most. The Council claiming that self-service machines and to a less extent volunteer are adequate replacements.

The Council are relying on technology to control access to libraries.

People will swipe their library cards through an automatic gate to gain access during these times.

But under 15 years olds unaccompanied by an adult won’t be able to do this. So young people access to our libraries are being severely curtailed.

Leaving libraries unstaffed will put those using them at risk.

Monitored CCTV with a response time of thirty minutes is not a sufficient replacement for having staff on site who can prevent incidents escalating and who can respond immediately to emergencies.

But not only are human assets of the libraries being lost, the physical space is too.

Barnet libraries are to lose between 15 to 90% of their space. This means fewer items to borrow. Less space for computers and less space to host events such as story times or author events.

The people of Mill Hill, East Barnet, South Friern and Childs Hill will not even have the limited access library service available in the rest of the borough. Their libraries are to be handed over to voluntary groups, who will only be obliged to open for 15 hours a week.

The Council justify the wrecking of Barnet Library Service by a claimed need to save money. The intention being to reduce the library budget by 1.6 million pounds by 2019/20.

Yet the Council originally allocated over 6 and a half million pounds to restructure the library service. Recently we have learned that over 14 million pounds are to be spent on library procurements in the next financial year. This is a lot of money to be spent on reducing the assets, efficiency, accessibility and safety of a service.

These changes will lead to a decline in use.

Why would you use a library that won’t have the books you want, where no help will be available, not enough computers available, where there will be no room to sit and study and where you will feel unsafe?

Barnet UNISON hope that this decline will not be used as an excuse by the present administration to close libraries a few years from now.

Instead we ask that the Council withdraw the plans for restructure and to engage in real consultation with library staff at all levels, and the people of Barnet on how to provide a Library service fit for the 21st Century.”

Scroll down to point 17 in the procurement plan it reveals proposed spend on Libraries construction of £12 million with additional items 18-25 showing an additional £2.125million for additional associated costs:

Making a total of £14.125 million.

A quick recap on other Barnet Council spend.

Below are the Agency/Consultancy figures for the last four years.

£12,526,943

£13,775,546

£15,538,090

£17,907,052

Making a total of £59, 747,631 million

In the first two quarters of this financial year Barnet Council has spent £9.3 million which, if it continues at this rate, will bring the total spend for this year to over £20 million on Consultants/Agency.

Barnet Council claims it is being forced into the Library changes by a need to cut £2,162 million from the Library Service budget by 2019/20.

Members and Barnet UNISON have been asking a very simple question:

“Is it true that in order to save £2,162 million Barnet Council are spending over £6 million (which does not include redundancy costs) on a project to close four public libraries (by handing them to volunteers), on a project that will restrict access for disabled people and children under 15 and are now planning to spend an additional £14,125 million on construction and associated costs (making a grand total of £20.125 million)?”

This latest revelation seriously calls into question as to why staff are being made redundant and why a service with a 97% Customer satisfaction is being brutally dismantled.

As far as Barnet UNISON is aware the £14.125 million construction and additional costs have never been disclosed in any of the reports going to previous Children’s Education, Libraries and Safeguarding Committees.

What can we do?

There is still time to stop the destruction of the Barnet Libraries Service. Barnet UNISON will be speaking at General Functions Committee on Tuesday 6 December at 7 pm at Hendon Town Hall. The Leader of Barnet Council Richard Cornelius is on this committee. The committee could refuse to implement the redundancies which would save the Library Service.

Hi supporters of libraries, museums, galleries and all who work in them.

Attached is a letter in today’s Ham and High. It is published too in the Barnet Times and, I hope, in the Barnet Press and Camden New Journal, which has a wrap around publicising the National Libraries, Museums and Galleries demo on 5 November.

For this demo, which starts at 12 noon from The British Library and goes via The British Museum to the National Gallery, we shall have the Metropolitan Brass Band and the speakers include Michael Rosen. The march has a KIDS4LIBRARIES group.

The Metropolitan Police are allowing us to march on the roads, but they are stretched for resources marshalling another demo the same day and advised us to recruit our own stewards. This we are doing, and our aim is to have thirty yellow-clad volunteer stewards to maintain all our health and safety.

If you are willing to be one of these thirty stewards, please email me your name and email address (keith.martin18@btinternet.com), and I shall see that you receive a briefing on what is required.

The aim of the demo is to stop the cuts to our library, museum and gallery services, and to save the jobs of all who work in them.

There is a national crisis, and we are determined to achieve these aims.

Barnet Council announced yesterday that they are to sack 46 % of the Library staff as they use machines to keep Libraries open with no staff. I know from other library campaigners this idea is starting to spread.

This video was made at Edgware Library in Barnet during unstaffed hours to show the risks inherent in the council’s plan to cut trained staff by 47% and increase opening hours, the majority of which will be unstaffed.

During unstaffed hours
• only adults with a library card and special PIN will be able to enter
• children under 15 will be excluded unless accompanied by an adult
•15- and 16-year-olds will be allowed in only with special permission, obtained in advance
• toilets will be locked

Although the scenes were staged – and everyone participating in this video was entitled to enter the library, the children were accompanied by a parent and no one came to any harm – the risks portrayed are very real.